How liberalism became our state religion

By Benjamin Wiker

March 25, 2013

As the Supreme Court hears arguments for and against gay marriage we might stand back from the whole judicial fracas and ask ourselves a larger and hopefully more startling question: “What is the government doing deciding what marriage is?” 

This is really two questions in one. First, how did it come to be that we, as a culture, are in a position where something seemingly so natural, something that existed long before any governments were around, is now up for debate? Second, why is it that we would look to a branch of the government to settle that debate?  The answer to the first question is rather complex. For centuries (not just decades) liberalism has been picking away at the Christian foundations of Western culture. Liberalism is, in essence, a secular and secularizing movement; it is historically defined by its opposition to Christianity. Wherever secular liberalism spreads, Christianity recedes. Look at Europe.

Christianity defined marriage by what we might call radical monogamy: a life-long, entirely exclusive union of one man and one woman. No sex before marriage. No concubines. No polygamy. No divorce (except for infidelity). No homosexuality. No fiddling with little boys.

The pagan Roman culture into which Christianity was born smiled on sex wherever, whenever, and with whomever it occurred. Marriage was an important social institution in Rome, but it was not defined by radical monogamy. Concubines? No problem. Sex with your male and female slaves? No big deal. Divorce? Happens all the time. Got a favorite boy? Don’t we all. Like pornography? We’ll paint the walls of your villa next week.   Homosexuality was as widespread in Rome as it was in Greece, and, yes, in Rome there was gay marriage. Right at the top of society. The emperor Nero married one Pythagoras, and we have reports of other such unions.

That was the marital, sexual status quo of the society into which Christianity was born. As Rome fell, and Christianity rose, the Christian understanding of sexuality and marriage transformed the Roman Empire—proto-Europe, we might call it. With that transformation the radical monogamy of Christianity became the social, moral, legal standard, so normal that it was regarded as natural.

It is only because Christianity won out over pagan Rome that we are having arguments about marriage today. If Christians had been summarily extinguished by imperial Rome, radical monogamy would have disappeared with it, along with opposition to homosexuality.  

CONTINUED:  http://www.humanevents.com/2013/03/25/god-gay-marriage-and-the-imperial-court/